9 Classroom Community and Learning.

The class environment is critical for the development of students.  Over and over at each level I taught I tried to build a respectful community where students could learn, make mistakes and feel safe enough to learn. Smart Art needs the right environment to thrive.   This is an important component.  Surprisingly it is  not a topic addressed specfically in my undergraduate, masters or doctorate level work.   Yet our doctoral cohort in Chicago began with a weekend team-building exercises. This made a huge difference.   I wondered then “Why is this not emphasized earlier in Education?”.     So, I included classroom community building in my  university training for future teachers.   A healthy classroom community is a cornerstone to Smart Art.  If and when students begin to express their individual Art and share it with their peers, they need to have a safe, encouraging environment to nurture their talents.  That does not just happen, it has to be built.   Actually I believe it is important in the all levels of Education,  Business world, Medical Profession, Commercial Businesses serving the public…really anywhere there are people working together.   Smart Art has surprising benefits.

Improvisation is one of the most wonderful tools to get people to work together.  It is free, simple and so much fun.  Because it is enjoyable it is a priceless part of Smart Art and community building.  The perfect combo.  Large groups need to be broken down into smaller groups.  This is an old strategy…I am reminded of one of the first examples historically recorded examples of breaking a large group of people into smaller groups: Moses leading Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.  They were divided into 12 Tribes.  So I began  breaking Smart Art classrooms into small groups.  I use a personality inventory to put form groups with similar traits.   Traditional education trains teachers to form groups in two manners. One is with diverse groups by purposefully put one student from each different race or culture in one group. For example one Asian, African American, Hispanic, Indian, Native American…etc..  The second way of forming groups in classrooms is putting a leader personality in each group and stronger academic students with weaker academic students.  The negative element in this old theory is students recognize they are being put in a group based on their differences or weaknesses.  Except for the leaders and strong academically.  They are put above the others in the group which is condescending and can be harmful if not handled well.  It is rare that a young students knows how to handle that well!   They think , ‘I am the only Asian in this group “I am in this group because I have trouble with writing”…  I did not like it, I want my students to know we are equal and respected.   So,  I thought, ‘I need to change this, but how?. I pondered  “How do we build friendships and partnerships?”   Not by differences, but by similarities.  I could easily tell these groups were not working.   So I stopped that old technique and tried a new one.   Instead of grouping by outer (extrinsic) differences I groups students by inner similarities (intrinsic) personalities!   The students loved it.  There was dramatic shift in the group comradery and success.  Just the fact they were not there because they were racially different or academically lacking…it was more successful than I could ask for or imagine.  I started to hear the same comments semester after semester.  “ I have built the best relationships maybe even life-long friendships. “.   Some groups created a T-shirt, a song or a saying.  One of the 1st classes got along so well they actually wanted to start a school together and told me I could be the principal.  I told them I liked teaching too, much to be an administrator.  But I encouraged their enthusiasm for building a strong class community.  So, I began to use this in all my courses.  Patterns began to emerge that were refreshing and comical.  This became the bases for Smart Art.  A safe environment where students could express their own individualism or differences and not be ridiculed or feel second class. Different is different not bad just different. 

Here are some of my fondest discoveries grouping students by similar personality traits instead of different racial and culture differences.    The first day the quieter students ( in almost every class) would come up after class and thank me profusely for putting them in a group without a bossy leader.   The loudest and most argumentative group were the leaders.  They usually fought the first day because they were all used to being in charge… as the semester progressed they worked through their differences and built strong friendships.